I lived a life which rambled on
Along some paths I did not choose,
Past some days with blinding light,
Past some chaos in the nights.
I helped some folks along the way,
Raised a family, which I love,
Had few regrets about my life,
With things I did, or could have done.
But in darker times that I had known,
Occasionally amid the din,
I found myself adrift and lost,
Committing small but venal sins.
Bubbling from forgotten pasts
These useless acts of painful hurts
Confront me as I lay awake
For those amends I did not make.
The sins were often trivial,
Mostly dull and harmless types.
Banal little stupid deeds,
Done from need or selfish spite.
A few involved some painful fights
With no one hurt beyond repair
Nonetheless they still were wrong.
They are mine; I own them fair.
A few were crimes of petty theft,
Never noticed, never seen.
Some used words like sharpened blades
To wound without necessity-
Crude attempts to force my way
Through people who resisted me.
And several times, when felt betrayed,
My anger rose ‘til I was blind;
Unable to know wrong from right,
I would destroy what was not mine.
When evening comes and tides roll in,
Shadows cloud my simple dreams;
I find myself astir with guilt,
Nothing is as it would seem.
As a fly within a web
Caught in mid- trajectory;
I battle hard within myself,
But only find futility.
I cannot move against these ties;
My will is paralyzed by doubt;
My limbs are heavy, weighed with dread;
They have no strength to pull me out.
What is it that I’ve become?
Where is it that I must go
To clear the ledger that I have
And pay the debts that I still owe?
For reasons I can’t ascertain
I feel accountings must be made,
My fate within a balance weighed
With judgment heard at end of day.
I need return what I have taken,
To make amends for what I’ve done,
To give to others what is needed,
To gain some peace beneath the sun.
I pray that there might be an answer.
The balance cannot stay the same.
Perhaps within the world to come
I might find another way.
- Finding the Light of G‑d, pages 74-76